“You’ve heard of ‘red-diaper babies,’” the children of advocates or sympathizers of socialism and communism in the 1920s and 1930s, who attended rallies and demonstrations with their parents. “I’m a ‘Nostra Aetate’ baby.”
So said Rabbi David Sandmel, senior rabbi of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago and professor of Jewish studies at the Catholic Theological Union, to the some 135 people gathered Sunday at the Pfister Hotel for “On Turning Forty: Visions for a New Generation,” a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II council document “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”).
While this document produced a “sea of change in the attitude of the Catholic Church to Jews and Judaism,” Sandmel began his remarks by describing the influence this document had on himself and his own family.
This included how when he was nine or ten years old, he helped his mother conduct a model seder for nuns; and how his family — his father was Rabbi Samuel Sandmel, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a pioneer in interfaith relations work — hosted Catholic priests and nuns as guests at Sabbath dinners and Passover seders.
Sandmel described how “I think it is difficult to overestimate the effect ‘Nostra Aetate’ had” on Catholic-Jewish relations. The changes this document made included:
• Repudiation of the “deicide” charge, the allegation that “the Jews killed Jesus” and that the whole Jewish community must suffer forever for this. “In North America and Europe, this has been eliminated from Catholic textbooks and is not part of the life of the church today,” Sandmel said.
• Repudiation of anti-Semitic hatred and persecution.
• Acknowledging the validity of the Jewish covenant with God, although there are “still unresolved issues” about that “in the broader understanding of Catholic theology,” Sandmel said.
• Initiation of “theological inquiry and friendly discussions,” which today are “normalized” between the two faith communities.
Power of friendship
There are still issues on both sides, Sandmel said. Some Jews are concerned that Jewish-Catholic dialogue may become less of a priority to the Catholic Church as it pursues dialogue with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, all of which outnumber the world’s Jewish community.
Sandmel also criticized the Jewish community. “My sense is that many Jews are ignorant of ‘Nostra Aetate’ and the many other Vatican and Protestant documents calling for the reevaluation of Jewish-Christian relations,” he said.
Sandmel himself was involved in creating “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity” in 2000. But while this was “a groundbreaking document,” it “has gotten more attention in the Christian than in the Jewish community,” Sandmel said.
The Catholic speaker at the event was Mary C. Boys, professor of “practical theology” at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and adjunct faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
She praised Milwaukee’s Catholic-Jewish Conference for its yearlong series of events celebrating “Nostra Aetate,” which culminated with Sunday’s dinner.
“I know of no other city” where the Catholic and Jewish communities marked the anniversary “where events were so numerous and so inclusive of the arts,” Boys said. “I hope tonight’s event will not be the end, but a new beginning.”
She also mentioned some unresolved issues or areas where understanding is difficult. She said that “the scars of the Shoah have complicated Jewish identity in ways Christians are not able to fathom.”
Boys said that Christians need to learn “how Jews define themselves,” and that “not all define themselves by their religious tradition. Our relations with Jews can’t focus only on religious matters.”
She called the Jewish community’s sense of connection to the state of Israel “the most misunderstood point” in interfaith relations, because there is “nothing analogous” to it in Christianity.
Boys also encouraged the audience to “develop the power of friendship across religious boundaries.”
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, head of the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese, in his opening remarks praised the Milwaukee Catholic-Jewish Conference, which celebrated its own 30th anniversary as well, calling its participants a group of “sensitive men and women” who have “made Milwaukee a center of [interfaith] goodwill.”
He and Rabbi Ronald Shapiro of Congregation Shalom spoke before the dinner and together provided the closing benediction afterward.
The co-chairs of the 40th anniversary event were Rev. David Cooper and Melvin Sinykin. Co-chairs of the Catholic-Jewish Conference are Kathy Heilbronner of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations and Judi Longdin of the office of ecumenical and interfaith concerns of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
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